In British English, I would define the difference as: Freight means the goods that are being transported (e.g. gold bars) Carriage means how people or things are transported (e.g. a train) I would say neither is a word that most people use in their daily lives. So a Freight Train is a train that carries goods (rather than people). There's another specific use of Carriage - "a horse drawn carriage" which is a wheeled vehicle (for want of a better word) that is pulled by one or more horses. Again, this is a very old thing but some people like to use them for weddings. For an example, see http://www.carlton-carriages.co.uk/index2.html